Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you Violence! and you will not save? [SLIDE] 3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 4 So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous therefore judgment comes forth perverted. [SLIDE] ***** 1 I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. [SLIDE] 2 Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. 3 For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. 4 Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith. 1
10.06.13 Blessed Be Your Name [SLIDE] I don t watch that much television. It s not just because I don t have that much time for it, but also because Sandy and I are cheap. We cancelled our cable TV back home to try and save some money while I was in seminary. We did keep Internet service, though. With Netflix, I could still watch most shows that I was interested in watching. Now that we re in Korea, however, where Netflix doesn t work, we decided to get TV once again. I rationalized it by thinking that watching Korean TV would help me to learn Korean. In addition to the 150 or so Korean language channels available, we also get a few channels in English. I was excited to find that one of them is The History Channel. Pretty much all I watched back home was ESPN for sports, AMC for The Walking Dead, and The History Channel for Pawn Stars, which features the daily operations of a pawn shop in Las Vegas. Before Pawn Stars, which is its most popular show, The History Channel was known for airing a lot of documentaries on World War II. By now, nearly 70 years since the war ended, virtually every aspect by which WWII can be viewed has been covered. There have been documentaries that focused on WWII's major battles, on the generals, on the Nazi party, on the Holocaust, and even on the American home front. Then there were documentaries that featured WWII in HD and WWII in color. You would think that the well had run dry, but apparently not. While I was watching Pawn Stars the other night I saw a promo for The History Channel s latest WWII documentary WWII from Space. That s right WWII from Space. 2
The premise of the documentary is that by viewing the battles from the perspective of space, we can more clearly see the strategies employed by the commanders, i.e., the movement and placement of troops on the ground and ships at sea. From the perspective of space, the Earth becomes a game board and every troop a game piece. While we may not see the details of what s happening on the ground, we can see the big picture. It is a God s-eye view of the world. Imagine being able to see from this perspective not on TV looking at troop formations but in your own life. Imagine seeing the world, in all its beauty and in all its brokenness, from this God s-eye view. I don t mean to diminish anyone s personal struggles, but I would bet that many of our grievances, annoyances, and complaints might seem insignificant from this perspective, 100 km above the Earth. Now imagine that you not only had the perspective of distance but of time. Imagine the ability to see the past, present, and future all at once. Events that were experienced as tragic in the moment might through the greater perspective of time fit within a larger redemptive narrative. Of course, such a perspective is not possible for us. Here on the ground, when trouble arises, when the world is not as it should be, we want answers. We want God to respond to our complaint now! This is the situation in which the prophet Habakkuk finds himself [SLIDE]. We know so little of the life of Habakkuk. In the book that bears his name he is mentioned only twice. We don t know where he was from, how he came to be a prophet, or where he prophesied in the Temple or in the street. Apparently, sharing these sorts of details were not important to the prophet, and that is understandable because he had more immediate concerns, for he was a man who was watching his people suffer. 3
Many prophets begin their writing by telling us how they were called by God to be prophets. Not so with Habakkuk [SLIDE]. The prophet s first recorded words are a desperate plea for God to intervene and end their suffering: O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen / Or cry to you Violence! and you will not save? (1:2). Habakkuk does not offer any details in his cry. All he lets us know is that all around him he witnesses destruction and violence. As a result, the law the tie that binds society together has become slack, i.e., loose, weak, ineffective. Society has broken down. There is no order. The wicked surround the righteous and justice is perverted. According to Habakkuk, God, the author of the law, is conspicuously silent. The issue that Habakkuk raises how a God who is all-powerful and good can coexist with evil and suffering is known among theologians and seminary students as theodicy [SLIDE]. The most famous theodicy in the Bible is the book of Job which happens to be my favorite. Job s complaint is a deeply personal one, as he is the one who directly suffers, and it takes place over the span of 42 chapters. By contrast, Habakkuk the prophet doesn t claim that evil has been done to him directly, and Habakkuk the book is a mere three chapters long. Nevertheless, the issue Job and Habakkuk raise is the same. Yet Habakkuk, like Job, does not despair. He is not without hope. Despite all the violence and disorder and a society turned on its head, still he addresses his complaint to God, believing that he will be heard. This in itself is a sign of hope, and it is not unfounded. Immediately following the prophet s complaint, in verses that we did not read today, beginning with 1:5, God does respond [SLIDE]: 4
5 Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. 6 For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation, who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. I said earlier that we know little about the prophet Habakkuk. However, given this reference to the Chaldeans, who were also more commonly known as the Babylonians, we can probably date the book to around 600 BC. Three hundred years earlier under Solomon, the Israelites were a united people [SLIDE]. After Solomon s death, the nation split into two rival kingdoms Israel in the north and Judah in the south. At the time that Habakkuk was writing, Israel had long ago been destroyed by the Assyrians. All that was left of the once United Monarchy was Judah, which consisted of only two of the original twelve tribes, as well as the city of David, Jerusalem. And now Judah was under siege from another invading army, the Babylonians, and their king, whose name you may have heard, Nebuchadnezzar. The king of Judah was eventually killed by the Babylonians, and his son, who assumed the throne, was taken into captivity in Babylon. As a nation, Judah, the remnant of God s chosen people, would soon cease to exist. This history helps us to understand the existential crisis that Habakkuk and the people of Judah were facing, but it also helps us to understand just how shocking was God s answer to Habakkuk s complaint. [A] work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told. For I am rousing the Chaldeans [SLIDE]. I am rousing the Chaldeans. These are shocking words because they indicate that God is using a people who have no knowledge of God, a people who are attacking the people of God, to carry out God s will. How can this be? 5
That is the very question that Habakkuk asks, saying to God in 1:13: Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they? This is a question we all ask whenever evil, and the suffering it instills, seem to eclipse the light and the love of God. This is the question we ask when evil men and women massacre shoppers in a mall in Nairobi, Kenya. It s the question we ask when an illegitimate, oppressive government in Pyongyang funds its missile program while its people starve. It s the question we asked in America twelve years ago when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, killing thousands of innocents. How can God whom Christians claim is good, and therefore opposed to evil, and powerful, and therefore capable of stopping evil remain silent in the face of evil? Even worse, how can God use such evil for his own purposes? That is the issue Habakkuk is wrestling with as his dialogue with God continues into chapter 2 [SLIDE]: I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. 6
I try not to get too theological here in the pulpit. Here in the English Ministry, different denominational traditions are represented. Some of you come from Lutheran, Catholic, Methodist, or Evangelical churches, and my own background is mixed between Catholic and Presbyterian, in its American and Korean forms. Because of this, I want people to feel welcome here regardless of the tradition that they come from. But I also feel a responsibility, given that this is a Presbyterian church, to articulate Presbyterian theology, especially when it helps us understand a passage of Scripture. One of the central tenets of Presbyterian theology is the sovereignty of God [SLIDE], i.e., the claim that all of creation is subject to God s authority. Even horrific acts of evil, and the people who commit them, are under God s authority. To be certain, what they do does not meet with God s approval, for God does not will evil. Rather, God permits evil as part of the fallen human condition. Our free will includes the freedom to turn from God. Moreover, the intent of someone who commits an evil act and the intent of God in permitting the act are entirely different. Humans committing evil have an evil intent they seek to cause harm. They act out of envy, greed, rage, lust, etc. Yet in permitting evil to temporarily triumph, God s intent is always in keeping with God s character, which is one of love and justice. Let s look again at Habakkuk to see this point illustrated. The Babylonians, menacing and violent, who have no love for the God of Judah but whose own strength is their god, according to 1:11, intend nothing but evil to the people of Judah. They come for conquest. But even the Babylonians, in all their fearsome might, are under God s authority. Although their own strength is their god, they will one day have to answer to the one true God. This is part of the vision that God tells Habakkuk in chapter 2 [SLIDE]: 7
2 Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. 3 For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. The vision that God describes to the prophet includes a series of woes against the wicked, meaning the Babylonians, including the following [SLIDE]: Alas for you who heap up what is not your own Because you have plundered many nations, all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you (2:6,8) According to God s vision, the Babylonians will one day be conquered just as they conquer. Their downfall is already foreseen. Indeed, the Babylonian Empire would fall to the Persians in another 40 years the same Persians who would liberate the Jews and allow them to return home. The Jews, in their fear, and the Babylonians in their fearsomeness, did not could not have known this. But to God, to whom past, present, and future are as one, it was certain and certainly designed. I have quoted a few times now from verses that we did not read in today s passage. That is not ideal, but this book really deserves to be read in its entirety, because it is a conversation between the prophet and God. When we isolate certain verses from the larger narrative, we lose the flow of the conversation. But we also have to work within the limitations of a 1-hour worship service. I therefore chose representative portions of the prophet s complaint and God s response, which make up all of chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 3, however, is quite different. Having received the heavenly vision, the prophet turns from protest to praise. Indeed, chapter 3 is introduced, not as an oracle, as was chapter 1, but as a prayer. The prophet begins his prayer by saying [SLIDE]: 8
2 O Lord, I have heard of your renown, and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work. In our own time revive it; in our own time make it known; in wrath may you remember mercy In the benediction last week I mentioned how the old-style hymns, which might seem dated musically, nevertheless contain a lot of well considered theology. Many of the modern praise songs, which excite with their rock rhythms and guitar solos, I find theologically shallow. But there is one modern praise song that I have always liked because it takes suffering seriously. The song is called Blessed Be Your Name. Here is a sampling of the lyrics [SLIDE]: Blessed be Your name When the sun's shining down on me When the world's 'all as it should be' Blessed be Your name [SLIDE] Blessed be Your name On the road marked with suffering Though there's pain in the offering Blessed be Your name [SLIDE] You give and take away You give and take away My heart will choose to say Lord, Blessed be your name Matt Redman, the co-author of the song (he wrote it with his wife), was inspired to write these words after the 9/11 attacks. Redman is English, and long before the horror of 9/11, he was scheduled to come to America on 9/15. After the terror of that day, and in the midst of 9
the pain and suffering that were inflicted upon so many, he could still say, Lord, blessed be your name --not because of the attacks, but because God, in God's goodness, still reigned. After a similar terror, and in the midst of similar pain and suffering, the prophet Habakkuk similarly writes [SLIDE]: 17 Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. Blessed be the name of the Lord. 10